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Merchant Marine Wrestler Renault Seeks Repeat Title

When deciding on a college, Vincent Renaut weighed the strength of each school’s wrestling program. His mother focused on academics and postgraduate opportunities, guiding Renaut to the United States Merchant Marine Academy.

At the academy, on Long Island Sound in Kings Point, N.Y., Renaut has become an aspiring maritime lawyer and a nationally recognized wrestler. Last year, he became the first N.C.A.A. wrestling champion from Kings Point, winning the Division III title at 165 pounds.

“I came here very hesitant, and against my will pretty much,” Renaut said recently. “But I’m very happy I did.”

In four years, Renaut has compiled an 84-15 record. And although he has struggled with injuries this season, he won his weight class recently at the Centennial Conference’s championship tournament, qualifying for the N.C.A.A. tournament in La Crosse, Wis., beginning Friday.

“I cry a lot at night when I’m just sitting alone,” Renaut said. “I have my mom’s eulogy at my desk, and I have her prayer card. I’ve got a disk the funeral home did with pictures and songs. It feels like it’s getting harder and harder every day.”

Renaut, who is from Plymouth, Mass., won two New England high school titles. He drew interest from Duke and Brown, both Division I programs. When Kings Point sent him a recruiting letter, he tossed it on the kitchen table, the precursor to the trash can. But his mother suggested he take a closer look and made him visit the campus.

It took a call from James E. Mercante, a former Kings Point wrestler and an admiralty lawyer, to sell Renaut on the academy.

Photo

Vincent Renaut recovered from an early deficit and a broken finger to win the national championship match last year, the last time his mother saw him wrestle.Credit
U.S. Merchant Marine Academy

“When you go to a school like Kings Point, it prepares you for an industry,” Mercante, a partner at the Manhattan firm Rubin, Fiorella & Friedman, said in a telephone interview. “It’s the Harvard of the maritime industry. Wrestling is not the type of sport you’re going to make any money from; you’ve got to think of your career.”

Renaut, who is studying mechanical engineering, has struggled with the detail-oriented rhythms of life at the academy. He wakes at 6 a.m. and turns in at midnight. He has to be clean-shaven, his clothes folded properly, his room in the barracks tidy.

He has accrued enough demerit points at times that his standing at Kings Point came under review.

“His personality is the type that doesn’t conform easily,” Coach Greg Ilaria said. “He wants to do his thing his own way, and that’s part of why he’s such a great wrestler. That same personality also gets you in trouble a little bit when you’re in a service academy with a rigid system.”

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After being eliminated from the N.C.A.A. tournament as a sophomore, Renaut increased his training and became more of a team leader, Ilaria said.

As a junior, he entered the N.C.A.A. tournament unseeded, but defeated the fourth- and fifth-seeded wrestlers on the way to the final, where he faced seventh-ranked Orlando Ponce of Augsburg College in Minneapolis. Renaut fell behind, 3-0, in the second period and broke the ring finger on his right hand. After doctors realigned the finger, Renaut went on to win, 7-3.

Afterward, Renaut ran into the stands to hug his mother and father while the crowd gave them a standing ovation. His mother, who received her cancer diagnosis in 2008, was frail from the chemotherapy and radiation treatments. It was the last match she saw her son wrestle.

“That was the most special moment that me and my mom have shared,” Renaut said. “That’s what makes this national championship so special. Yeah, I wanted to win it as an athlete. But making my mom happy was what really meant the most to me.”

With his mother’s health a concern, Renaut considered not returning to Kings Point for his senior year. But his mother insisted that he stay in school.

“She always talked about hoping to make it to my graduation,” Renaut said. “I know it’s going to be tough for me on graduation day. But I know she’s going to be there with me.”